WEEKEND

The weekend has arrived. The sky is one huge cloud. Nothing is going on this weekend. Yesterday my parents went shopping for a while, which is most certainly quite typical for them. They got a bunch of things for the upcoming birthdays. Last night my father & Uncle Frankie went to their usual football game. Rose, from across the street, came over to give my mother a custard pie. A guy who's a regular at the library told me this morning that the last time he went over to the Midway Shopping Center, where they give away free newspapers (Citizen's Voice, Times Leader etc.), there was a guy there who was taking large piles of them to sell on his own. The weird thing was that the guy was obviously well off & didn't have to be bothered with doing that. He was just cheap & selfish. My mother made sure she got together a couple of baskets for St. Joseph's Family Feast on Sept. 21. I'm supposed to take them over either tonight or tomorrow. Fran called yesterday just to make sure she kept in touch. Nothing much has been new with her lately. Unfortunately today is the third anniversary of Daren's death. She was such a good person & will be missed.

HAPPY FRIDAY

My father & Uncle Frankie went out for a while yesterday. When they got back they had chicken, soda & French fries with them. I practiced my guitar yesterday, more scales than anything else. It's annoying because I never have been able to tune it well. I really like to practice for at least a half hour to an hour each day. As usual there wasn't anything on TV yesterday except "I Love Lucy" & some stuff on the Catholic channel. Most of the coverage these days goes to Sarah Palin & all her travails, both good & bad. There's no point in bothering to keep track of all the gossip about the politicians & their families. I found another case for my glasses. That's always quite a nice thing. It's time for the very first Friday dance of September, of course. I need gas pretty desperately so it's good that the price of gas has been going down lately. The lowest prices in this area are at the stations in Exeter & one in Pittston. Fortunately & amazingly, I haven't gotten a headache in quite a while. Usually they come fairly frequently.

QUIET DAY

September plods forward. Alas, it's the month of my birthday. Miz Kitti's is the very day after mine. The weather is still about the same for now. It's cold in the morning & nice all day. Uncle Frankie came over for a while yesterday. The conversation's all to predictable these days. Lately everybody's been rambling on absolutely constantly about this Sarah Palin character. All the incessant babbling gets annoying after only a very short time. Obama's entirely too far to the left but McCain's a W. clone. Palin's the only one whose cultural views are acceptable. The rest all want a pro abortion, homosexuality, etc. platform. Yesterday I watched yet another old movie, "The Food of the Gods". It starred Ida Lupino & Marjoe Gortner. In the 1970's & 1980's Marjoe Gortner was an actor on all sorts of TV shows & movies. He was also a Bible thumping, holy rolling preacher. It's going to take me a while to get around to seeing all those movies I won at St. John's bazaar. I practiced my guitar just as conscientiously as ever. Scales are still boring but unavoidably necessary.

WEEK HALF OVER

This past week has been entirely uneventful so far. The cousins are still rambling on about Jennifer's baby & our anticipated white water rafting trip next year. Yesterday I watched the movie, "The Vault of Horror", which was quite a bit like its prequel "Tales From the Crypt" & even included a reference to it. Terry Thomas was the only familiar name & face from the entire cast. He was a big name in 1960's sitcoms & a dead ringer for Bernard Fox. Fr. Walsh is unavailable for Mass all this week so I've been going to Mass at St. John the Evangelist in Pittston. That's where I was baptized. It's right by the Pittston Library & Domino's Pizza. Yesterday I practiced a bunch of scales on my guitar. It pays to keep up with that kind of thing. Unfortunately yesterday I also pigged out on many Pop Tarts & other kinds of junk food which I can seriously do without. Yet another big highlight of yesterday was when my father went over to watch Gino work on Uncle Frankie's house.

LABOR DAY

The long Labor Day weekend went quite well. Nothing much happened over the course of the weekend. My parents & I, in separate cars, went to 10:30 Mass at the Oblates' Seminary yesterday. It was long & crowded. They ran into Uncle Frankie over there & the three of them, after Mass, went to the Avenue Diner to get something to eat. While they were gone, Fran called & said she wanted to make sure she got a chance to see them before she went back to work. After a while, she & Uncle Frankie came over for a visit for a while. She got them candy. Of course, on Sunday morning my car battery died but I got it all straightened out. I couldn't help noticing, with great surprise, that there was no traffic yesterday. For Labor Day that was quite a change of pace. I've always equated days like that with major traffic congestion. When I went to Turkey Hill in Exeter, this morning, to get the Citizen's Voice, it hadn't been delivered yet. I didn't bother to go to another store for it because by now I know that when any one store doesn't get it, none of the others will either. I ended up getting the "Times Leader". According to the latest e mail binge from the cousins, Jennifer is pregnant & everybody's gleefully taking Larry up on his suggestion to go white water rafting next July. Today isn't anybody's birthday but KrissyKrissyKrissy's is on the tenth. Lately the weather has been very cold in the morning followed by an especially nice warm day to show for it.

NICE WEEKEND SO FAR

This morning the librarian showed up around fifteen minutes late. While I was hanging around outside, a woman pointed out to me that the leaves have been turning colors & falling already, portending quite an early autumn. Monday is Labor Day. There's always an absolutely bottomless pit of traffic every year on that day. I've never really been able to handle all that kind of aggravation but we're all stuck with it unfortunately. I don't have any big plans for this year, which is absolutely fine by me. So far I haven't gotten any unfortunate problems from eating Uncle Frankie's Mexican spicy nuts but most probably that's because I make sure I only eat extremely few each time. Last night he & my father went to the very first big game of the new year. Last night I watched another movie from the "The Fly" series & "Tales From the Crypt". They were among the movies I won at St. John the Evangelist's bazaar a while ago. Yesterday I spent a while playing "A Hard Day's Night" on my guitar. That's one of the really easy ones.

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY FRIDAY

Everyone gets his official happy Friday today, with at least a dance or two to show for it. I've always suspected that my next door neighbor is plum loco but today I got more than a little bit of proof. Not only was he mowing his lawn at 7:30 a.m. but it was raining out on top of that. I just noticed that John McCain has picked Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. I just got a reminder that Monday is Labor Day, the official beginning of the bad part of the year. From September on, we start getting the beginnings, slowly but surely, of the bitter cold miserable weather, & early sunsets around here. It may not literally happen right away but it's an undeniable symbolic beginning. Of course, I won't be able to come over here on Monday because most public places are always closed on big holidays. My father & Uncle Frankie are supposed to go to a big game tonight. They've always gotten a kick out of those kinds of things. I don't have anything specific planned all weekend but who knows what might turn up?

GOOD DAY SO FAR

There's nothing going on so far today. The weather's been very nice. I was forced to miss 9:00 Mass because of some unavoidably necessary personal affairs. All went quite well. Last night I watched "Bookmark", Thomas Woods's show on how the Catholic Church built western civilization, & Fr. Mitchell Pacwa's live show. They were all on EWTN. Earlier in the day I watched the inevitable "I Love Lucy". I've been trying to figure out the latitude & longitude for my town on Deviantart. I haven't bothered, very much anyway, with those kinds of things ever since I was only a kid in grammar school. Some sites dredge up absolutely some of the very oddest of details. I practiced my guitar yesterday. On top of everything else, as I was looking around through a pile of stuff of mine, I even managed to track down yet another pick. They've always been extremely easy to lose track of unfortunately. Yesterday I ate chicken tenders & French fries. Recently there was a movement among members of the liberal totalitarian thought police, for some insane reason, to change the name of these potato thingies to freedom fries. Uncle Frankie showed up recently with a bag of extremely seriously spicy nuts but I'd be more than a little afraid to dare to mess with them, except for only very few at a time.

GUITAR PLAYING

I practiced my guitar again yesterday. I've decided to keep right on constantly pushing as hard as possible to learn to play at least a few songs really well. Uncle Frankie showed up for a while yesterday. There's nothing going on with him lately, which is about typical. He & my father are supposed to go to a big game on Friday. Of course, as always there's nothing on TV these days. I watched "I Love Lucy" yesterday & a little bit of "Jeopardy" last night. That's about all I can handle is old stuff & certain game shows. At least the weather's most certainly been holding up quite well lately. My father's car has no air conditioning now either. My air conditioning hasn't worked for quite a while by now anyway so I know quite well just exactly how rotten a feeling it is in the summer. It's entirely too hot on hot days & entirely too cold on cool days. It's not only broken. It's broken in an unspeakably evil annoying way.

UNCLE FRANKIE HOME

Sometime yesterday, Uncle Frankie arrived home after his visit to Fran. He, of course, got us all candy. He got taffy for my parents & Reese's peanut butter cups & Kit Kats for me. He stuck around for a few hours once he got back & told my parents all about whatever he & Fran did over the course of his visit. I practiced my guitar as usual yesterday. Lately I've really been getting the hang of "Two Of Us". I heard from Barbara from the Carmelites yesterday too. She called about a book that Judy is going to make us start reading from now on. She wanted to know if I had a copy of it & whether I'd like to buy one or to borrow they one they already have in their supply of books anyway. I decided to go for the one that's already there anyway. Nothing interesting was on TV yesterday. Besides "I Love Lucy" I didn't even bother with anything else. Only very rarely does anything worth bothering with come on. Lately I've been losing track of my eyeglasses entirely too frequently for my taste, so I've simply got to wise up & figure out a way to put them inevitably where I can find them very easily.